MR NICHOLLS AND THE "CRUSADES."

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 316, 29 July 1879, Page 2

MR NICHOLLS AND THE "CRUSADES."

To the Editor of the Akaroa Mail.

Sib,—ln your report of the last meeting of the Mutual Improvement Association I observe two little errors which I should like to correct, with your permission ; not that anything said or done by me at that meeting is of any importance, but for the sake of accuracy. First, it is asserted in the report referred to that I criticized the essayist and certain speakers; Now there is, to_ naymind, a great difference between criticizing a speaker and commenting upon his views, statements, and language. This latter I did, because I supposed it to be one of the purposes for which we were met together. The former I should not think of doing. My ideas of discussion have been cliieflv drawn, unfortunately, perhaps, from such sources as the English Houses of Parliament and the Law Courts. It has notbeen my privilege to become familiar with that dignified Btyle of debate to be learnt in those borough councils for which (as we were informed) we are so deeply indebted to the tender Crusaders. It is, therefore, not my practice to me,et a man's ments and statements' by calling him an ignoramus and a blockhead. I leave that style to those who are inspired by a sympathy with the magnanimous Crusaders. The second statement I wish to correct is, tliat I could see no good in any of the Crusaders. Now, instead of confessing such blindness,! admitted the possibility of virtues among them, and even paid a tribute to that courage of Richard I. which leads his admirers to compare him to a wild beast. But I condemned the action of kings who neglected their own legitimate duties; who left in disgraceful anarchy and misery the nations they were sworn to govern, to destroy, as they vainly imagined they could easily do, a distant people with whom they had no right to interfere; kings who bear no reasonable comparison with men whose business it is to go to distant nations to do them good, without neglectiug duties in their own country. I denied that men, who without cause, robbed, hunted down, mutilated and murdered God'B own people; that men whom God punished for their oraelties by the disasters which He generally brought upon the enemies of Israel; that men who generally quarrelled among themselves and trapped and imprisoned each other were entitled to be considered as such gentle lovers of their fellow bemgs as they were. represented to be by the essayist.—Yours, &c, - - - A. N. [Under the special circumstances, we insert Mr Nicholl's letter, though we think that he has been ill-advised in writing it. We utterly deny the existence of the '* two little errors " alluded to. If Mr Nicholl's speech was not " criticism," and that of tbe most pungent kind, we do not know the meaning of the word. If he had any good opinions of any of the Crusaders, he carefully concealed them, and ho cannot expect a mere reporter to interpret his unexpressed thoughts.—Ed. A. M.]